Austin vs Minneapolis
Metro-area medians — Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX Metro Area vs Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI Metro Area — not the cities proper.
Austin and Minneapolis are evenly matched, each taking 4 of the clearly-decided measures.
Austin costs about 7% less to live in, and household incomes are similar. Adjusted for local prices, a typical paycheck stretches further in Austin.
For your salary & household
Enter your pay and household size to see what it's really worth here — the numbers update live and the link stays shareable.
On $75,000 for just you, Austin leaves you about $7,475/yr better off after tax and local prices.
Take-home estimates a single filer taking the standard deduction (2025 federal brackets, FICA, and state income tax) and isn't tax advice. “Real value” rebases take-home to average U.S. prices using the BEA cost-of-living index; the per-person figure uses the OECD square-root equivalence scale.
Choose Austin for
- + Livability (CityLedger)
- + Cost of living (price level, US = 100)
- + Cost-adjusted income (pay's real value)
- + Bachelor's degree or higher
Choose Minneapolis for
- + Median rent
- + Median home value
- + Average commute
- + Air quality (median AQI)
Austin vs Minneapolis — frequently asked
- Is Austin cheaper than Minneapolis?
- Austin is cheaper: its overall cost of living runs about 7% below Minneapolis's (BEA Regional Price Parities).
- Which has higher household income, Austin or Minneapolis?
- Household incomes are similar — $99,897 in the Austin metro versus $97,928 in Minneapolis (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).
- Does a paycheck go further in Austin or Minneapolis?
- A paycheck stretches further in Austin. Adjusted for local prices, the median income is worth $101,867 there versus $93,423 in Minneapolis.
- Which has cheaper rent, Austin or Minneapolis?
- Minneapolis has cheaper rent — a median of $1,444/mo versus $1,784/mo (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).